Dec 5, 2013

One Direction announces second show at the Pasadena Rose Bowl

PASADENA>> One Direction wants to leave two nights of ‘Midnight Memories’ in Pasadena next year.

The popular boy band announced Wednesday it will play a second show next September at Rose Bowl Stadium after receiving “overwhelming demand” from fans. The two shows will be Sept. 12 and 13.

Rose Bowl General Manager and CEO Darryl Dunn said the back-to-back shows will be the first double concert event at the stadium since Pink Floyd played two shows in a row in 1994.

“It’s going to be great. It really speaks to the band’s popularity, being able to have enough demand to fill two shows in a stadium of our size,” Dunn said. “Don’t underestimate a band that is the band of choice for teenage girls.”

The performances are the only ones announced in California for One Direction’s 2014 North American stadium tour called Where We Are.

“It was 100 percent based on demand,” said Rich Best, executive vice president of booking for Live Nation, which is promoting the tour. “When going into it we always thought there was the possibility of it but when we saw the demand just in the pre-sales there was no denying that we would not be able to meet public demand without a second show.”

The band made the announcement in a short video posted online, which concludes with a photo of the band — Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson — photoshopped standing in front of the Rose Bowl and wearing UCLA football jerseys. Writing above them reads “See you in Los Angeles.”

Dunn said the back-to-back concerts will also mean double the revenue for the stadium in a year in which concert dates are largely blacked out because of construction for ongoing renovation.

“Next year we start construction in January, so from January through the summer our field is going to be off limits so we are fortunate with the timing of the tour,” Dunn said. “It certainly will help us as we try to meet our financial needs for the stadium.”

Tickets for both shows will go on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 7 atwww.livenation.com.